Introduction to Homoeroticism
by Anidori-Kiladra
Summary: Abed looks up at him over their morning cereal and says, monotone and calm: "I've been thinking that we should have sex." Troy drops his spoon.


**Introduction to Homoeroticism**

Abed looks up at him over their morning cereal and says, monotone and calm: "I've been thinking that we should have sex."

Troy drops his spoon.

He feels his eyes going wide in his head.

Abed stands up, picks up Troy's spoon, pats him on the shoulder. He swings his bookbag over his shoulder and starts to walk toward the door.

"I can see that you're going to be catatonic for a while. It's all right, that's only natural. I have to go to class now. But we can talk about it again when I get back if you've recovered by then."

Troy thinks he makes some sort of gurgling noise, but he can't be entirely sure.

.

He's still sitting in the same spot when Abed gets back a few hours later. He tried to stand up a few minutes after Abed left, but found that his legs were sticky and bendy like that baking clay before you bake it. After that, it just seemed easier to not move for a while.

Abed stops by the _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ model and lets his bag drop to the floor. "Everybody asked where you were. Shirley wanted to know if you were sick and if so whether you wanted her to bring you soup and pray over you or possibly bake something," he says, rapid-fire. "I didn't tell them that you were in a state of shock because I propositioned you. I figured you'd probably want it to be a secret."

"Abed!" Troy splutters, aware that his voice is almost inhumanly high. "I don't want it to be a secret!"

Abed looks at him, narrowing his eyes birdlike. "You don't? Hmm, I hadn't factored that into my equations."

"I don't want it to be a secret because I don't want it to be anything at all! I don't want to have _sex _with you, Abed." He whispers the word, because things are always less scary when you whisper them. Unless it's the end of a ghost story or something.

"Are you sure?" Abed asks, his voice still the same level tone it always is. Troy becomes aware that his eyes are still opened wide (they're starting to hurt a little bit, a headache's beginning at the edges of his brain) and works to make them a normal size again.

"It only makes sense," Abed continues. "You're my favorite person."

"I know?" Troy says when it appears that Abed is waiting for a response.

"And I'm your favorite person." It's not a question, and Abed doesn't wait for an answer this time. He bends down and whips a notebook out of his bag, turns to a page and begins glancing at it just enough so that Troy knows he's got it all memorized anyway. "We're both objectively attractive people. We're young. And many typical college experiences involve some kind of experimentation. Plus, it's never going to work out with you and Britta."

"Hey!" Troy says. "You don't know that—wait, how do you know about me and Britta?"

Abed gives him one of those looks, and Troy feels himself begin to relax for the first time since breakfast. This is still Abed. And Abed always knows. "Sorry," Abed adds. "But you know it's true."

"I know," Troy says, picking up his long abandoned spoon and digging into his soggy cereal. Abed sits down across from him and leans on his elbows on the table and Troy knows he's not finished yet. He puts down his spoon, carefully this time.

"And it's not just that," Abed says. "Think about it. Other people assume that 'making a blanket fort' is a euphemism. The other day I caught Vicki writing fanfiction about us in her Biology notebook. When I confronted her about it, she told me that we're the second most popular pairing, right after Jeff and the Dean."

Troy makes a face. "Really?" he says, "The Dean?"

Abed waves his hand. "I know. But that's not important now."

"It's not?" Troy asks, still horrified. "Does Jeff know?"

Abed raises his eyebrows like that's an answer. "It's not really surprising. Thin line between love and hate and all that."

"But _we_ don't hate each other," Troy says. This is making less and less sense.

"No," Abed says. "But we sleep in bunk beds in the same room. And we're always together—trope dictates that we should have slept together months ago." He cocks his head to the side. "Probably while drunk. Do you want to get drunk?"

"So much," Troy says.

"Cool, " Abed says. "Cool cool cool. This is how it always starts."

.

After half a bottle of that expensive wine Annie was saving for an unspecified special occasion, and after Abed does his Don Draper impression and puts his hand on Troy's shoulder in a really different way than he did this morning, and after Troy can't help but shake it off and cross his arms and sit further back in his chair, that's when Abed looks at Troy and says, maybe a little sadly (but maybe it's only the wine), "Maybe not, then. All right, it was worth a try."

He turns away, one shoulder still up in a shrug, and something in the way his shirt hangs crooked makes Troy reach out and grab the tail of it, then be really unsure what to do with his other hand, then place it flat on Abed's bony hip.

Because if it's what Abed wants, then how can Troy say no? Abed is his best friend, and it's not like Troy hasn't thought about having sex with every single person he interacts with even a little bit (except the Dean. Troy still doesn't understand the appeal of that at all). And besides, Abed is (always) right: this might be the only chance he gets to experiment, and what's the point in not trying everything? So Troy thinks maybe this won't be so bad after all.

.

In the end, it's awful.

Not that it's _bad_. Not like _that_. Just that it turns out sex is a lot harder to choreograph than a secret handshake.

"I'm not worried," Abed says, when they are lying there with a careful few inches of space between them under the blankets. "There was a 39% chance of this outcome."

"Please let's never talk about this again," Troy says fervently, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Fair enough," Abed says, voice way too chipper for 3 am.

Troy feels the mattress shift as Abed climbs up into the top bunk. He clutches the blankets tighter around his chest.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep.

.

In the morning, they eat cereal and go to classes and hang out with the group and even go along with Britta's plan to save the whales by launching fish parts at passersby on the quad. And when they do their secret handshake, Troy hardly even pictures Abed's hands doing other things.

After a few weeks, he doesn't picture it at all.

And they never talk about it again.


End file.
